Beloved
by rayemars
Summary: Smellerbee, Longshot and Jet, a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Set after Lake Laogai.
1. escape

Disclaimer: Avatar: the last Airbender belongs to Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.  
——————

-

"We'll take care of him. He's **our** leader."

_I don't regret the choices that I've made_

-  
Smellerbee and Longshot waited until they were certain the others were gone and would have attracted the remaining soldiers' attention before moving. It was selfish, especially after Aang had found Jet for them again, but their group had the Avatar and benders and no one critically injured in it, so they'd make it out.

Longshot stripped off his bandages once the echoes faded, with quick, rapid movements so that he could get his bow back in his hands as soon as possible. Smellerbee took over guarding the door while he did, but returned as soon as he was done--her weapons were close-range, and they needed to keep the soldiers as far as possible.

The multiple little cuts and scars on Longshot's hands and arms were almost invisible in the underground light as he picked his bow back up and notched an arrow again, facing the door. Smellerbee wiped her eyes and nose with her sleeve one last time and reached for the bandages.

There wasn't enough--there wouldn't be enough even if she pulled off her own and ripped up her sleeves--but that didn't matter, anyway. Jet had been controlling his breathing really well, well enough to even fool them about how bad it was; when Smellerbee started to lift his shoulders so that she could get his shirt out of the way and wrap the bandages around the worst of the broken bones, Jet smothered a noise that could only be called a scream.

Jet didn't scream. Jet yelled, Jet shouted, Jet could speak with a voice that boomed and echoed from the tree branches, but he didn't scream.

Longshot's fingers slipped faintly on the arrow at the sound. She saw it from the corner of her eye as she gently set Jet back on the ground. He was breathing harshly through his teeth now, eyes squeezed shut even tighter than they'd been before.

_His shoulder bone's broken_, she realized, and then, _This is impossible_.

There was no way to bandage something this bad, not when they could be attacked at any moment. They had to get Jet out while the soldiers were distracted with Aang and the others, had to get back to the room, but. . . .

If they moved him like this, carried him all the way back there. . . .

Longshot shifted his grip on the bow, out of the position that would allow him to stand still with the least weariness and into one that would allow him to walk while still being able to shoot at a moment's necessity. Smellerbee hesitated for a second, then remembered that they couldn't afford that and nodded.

(_When you hesitate it spreads to others like a disease_, Jet had told them once, with that grin and those eyes, and she had remembered it when she said she would join him and Longshot on the journey to Ba Sing Se.)

". . . Here," she mumbled, and then cleared her throat before ripping a handful of bandages free from the small pile and pressing them against Jet's mouth. "Bite down."

Jet bit through the cloth as she lugged him up and onto his feet, still making those smothered screaming, choking noises in the back of his throat. He didn't open his eyes.

Longshot took a step back, into reach, but Smellerbee shook her head. "When we get out," she told him. "Keep them back."

He nodded and stepped forward again, moving towards the door. She adjusted Jet one last time, letting him slump over her as much as possible, and wished that she hadn't felt something shifting underneath his shirt, under his _skin_, at the moment. Jet made another choking noise, but he was the first one to take a step forward, even if it was a small and shuffling one.

That was all she needed.  
-

Longshot had better eyes than her--when he stopped abruptly in the corridor and drew the arrow back further, Smellerbee wrenched her dagger out of her belt, even though the sharp motion caused her to jostle Jet. He made a high, pained noise that the bandages didn't muffle.

Longshot hadn't fired, which was the first sign that something was off; and at the groan from Jet, she saw the shadows to the right of them shift. Maybe the waterbender had come back?

That idea was rejected when she realized that the shadows were moving back, not forward. Whoever was there, all they were going to do was let them pass by.

Not soldiers, then, or a member of the Avatar's group, and Longshot's eyes remained narrowed and the arrow ready to fire. She tightened her grip on the hilt of her knife.

Longshot took a step forward, arrow still trained on the shadows. They didn't move.

They crossed that one portion of the corridor slower than anywhere else. Longshot remained focused on the hallway; when he began tilting his body so that he could keep the arrow trained on it, Smellerbee crossed behind him, keeping watch on the path in front.

Jet mumbled something, when they were halfway across the intersection, but she couldn't make it out between the bandages and his harsh panting.

When they were a good distance away from the hallway, over three arches past, Longshot stopped walking backwards behind them and came back. She waited another moment before tucking the dagger back into its sheath, much more carefully this time. The motion still made Jet grunt.

Behind them, Smellerbee could hear whoever had been in the shadows--two people, from the echoes--heading in the opposite direction. She couldn't turn to look at them without hurting Jet more, so she glanced at Longshot instead.

His eyes were still narrowed, more than could be accounted for by him keeping watch on the path in front of them, and something was wrong. Something was wrong and normally she would be able to _know_ what he was saying, but right now they needed to get Jet out of here and--

They needed to get Jet out of here. She could ask him what was wrong once they got back to the room.  
-

He climbed up the handholds first--he would be able to shoot over them at anyone coming from below, and she wouldn't be able to fight if they were attacked before they could even get outside, not without dropping Jet.

Her shoulders and back were already hurting from the walk down the corridor, but before they were even a third of the way up her arms burned from the climb and the weight.

Smellerbee gritted her teeth and stayed silent. Jet's good arm was wrapped awkwardly over her left shoulder--he'd made sure to give her access to her sword even with all the pain he had to be in. He was digging his feet into the holds below her as much as he could to take some of the weight off, and his chest was pressed against her back so that she could _feel_ the way the bones kept shifting slightly.

His right arm, the one with the broken collarbone, was dangling. His hand banged into the dagger's sheath occasionally as she climbed. She could hear his breathing getting more stilted the higher they went.

When they finally reached the opening, Longshot stopped and leaned up just enough to scan the area outside. When she paused as well, Jet braced his feet into the holds two below her own. He was too tense, trying too hard; when she glanced down she saw the way the tendons in his hand stood out against the skin.

Longshot made a small gesture to her before shoving himself up and out of the opening. _Stay there_, he'd said, _until I signal; there may have been some I didn't see. I'll hold them off while you and Jet get away_.

Her arms **ached**, and her neck was wet where the saliva the bandages had soaked up had started dripping, and if her grip slipped now Jet really would die.

He couldn't die. She just had to hold on long enough for them to get back to the room. She could do that, the room wasn't that far and she was a _freedom fighter_ she could get them back to one damn room. . . .

. . . Back to the room that she and Longshot had rented with the last of the honest money they'd had, because they'd abandoned the first place they'd gotten in case anyone had traced Jet back to there. It wasn't much farther--the same quarter, same style, a slightly crumbling block of one room apartments--than where they had been, because they hadn't wanted to be too far away when Jet came back.

Because they'd expected him to come back. He was **Jet**--even if he'd been acting weird, even if he'd been taken by the Dai Li, he was Jet and he would always come back.

(After the first week, when they were almost out of food but hadn't found work yet, she'd asked Longshot if he thought Jet had seen them escape the crowd--had seen them leave him behind.

_We didn't escape_, he'd replied, _we did what he'd trained us to do. We can't be any help if we're in jail too_.

That was what Smellerbee had been telling herself since that night, but it was only when Longshot said it too that it finally didn't sound like justifying.)

She started when Longshot leaned through the opening and reached down, and then tensed reflexively when she realized how the motion could have thrown Jet off. Longshot ignored it and hooked his hands underneath her armpits, beginning to pull them both up. Smellerbee scrambled up the last several handholds; at the top, Longshot pulled Jet through. She climbed out afterward.

He'd set Jet against the stone dome of the exit. The bandages had fallen out at some point, and his eyes were closed again--if they'd ever opened--and his breathing had a liquidy sound to it that creeped her out, and his chest was heaving shallowly in a way that she'd never seen since that time Pipsqueak taste-tested a plant none of them had seen before and which had made him vomit for a day afterward. Longshot was gripping Jet's hand and wrist tightly, watching his face.

Smellerbee glanced around reflexively. There was rubble to the left, heaps of it, and the remnants of rock walls--and the bodies of soldiers scattered around. The others had gotten away. Far to the left, she could barely make out the shapes of two people disappearing down one of the paths.

They had to go right, then. It'd be a different way than they came, but they could get back. One of them would have to take Jet straight to the room, while the other bought bandages and something for the pain.

But all their money was budgeted for food. They'd have to steal it, then; some new life this was turning out to be.

It didn't matter as long as he lived.

Jet made that watery choking noise again, and she turned around to see Longshot helping him stand. He glanced at her, and then to the right--he had the same plan.

Smellerbee pulled her sword and her dagger out of their sheaths. She waited until she heard the footsteps behind her--Longshot's quiet, Jet's scraping against the rock--before starting forward.

It didn't matter as long as they all lived.


	2. afterward

Disclaimer: Avatar: the last Airbender belongs to Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

I want them to have a happy ending, I can't help it. Or at least an ending where they're all alive.  
——————

-

The knock on their door came late at night, when the lights in most of the other apartments were already out. They had only one candle lit themselves, a half-burnt out thing sitting on the floor beside the bed to hide its light from the window.

It was his shift; but they were both so tense that the person behind the door had barely knocked twice before Smellerbee was on her feet, sword in hand. She'd been sleeping with it out of the sheath, on the floor next to the bed. Longshot had been sitting in the chair, sharpening the tip of one of his arrows with her dagger; he had it notched and pointed at the door at the first knock.

In the pause after the second knock, Longshot glanced at her. Smellerbee nodded, and then moved towards the door, scooping up the dagger that he'd dropped as she did. He stepped back towards the bed, glancing from Jet to the window.

Jet was feverish from the broken bones and half-conscious from the pain medicine Smellerbee had swiped; he _could_ get the both of them out the window while Smellerbee held back the enemies at the door, but something else would break if he did. He knew it would--they'd used up all their luck when they managed to get Jet home without puncturing his lungs or heart or anything else.

There was a third knock, and then an urgent voice: "Guys, it's me--Katara."

Smellerbee glanced back at him. Longshot nodded, but kept the arrow notched.

Smellerbee opened the door with sword still in hand, and lifted it reflexively a few inches at whatever was past the doorway. She stopped herself, though, and opened it a little further; when Katara entered with her brother a moment later, Longshot realized what had startled her--both of them were wearing cloaks despite the weather, with their hoods pulled up.

Longshot loosened the arrow, and sat back down a moment later.

Katara shrugged out of her cloak and popped open the jug at her hip, drawing the water out and around her hands, heading straight for Jet. Smellerbee followed her and pulled the sword's sheath out of her way with her foot. She picked it up and sheathed it a moment later, standing at the foot of the bed while Katara knelt at the side and held her hands against Jet's chest. The water was glowing again.

Sokka was standing by the door, in the corner farthest from him, so Longshot dropped the arrow back into the quiver and set the bow across his lap. He shifted enough that he could keep an eye on both him and Jet.

From his body language, Longshot got that Sokka wasn't comfortable being around him. He probably still wasn't completely okay with the fact that Longshot was one who'd set off the blasting jelly and brought down the dam.

That was fine. Longshot still wasn't completely okay with the fact that Sokka had evacuated the village.

Before he'd met Jet, the only thing that had been important was surviving. He knew enough to know that if he--a kid who was still training at archery--tried to get revenge, he'd die; so he didn't try.

Jet had talked about revenge, but his dreams had been big: getting back at all the Fire Nation, not just specific soldiers, and for what had been done to the Earth Kingdom, not just them. And he had the beginnings of the power to back his words up.

Jet had wanted to do more than survive, and he wanted to see others do more than that, too. So Longshot had followed him, had trained harder and joined the combat group, and had obeyed orders because in the end, he believed in Jet's belief.

But that was part of their old life. He'd done the right thing back then, because that's what Jet had said; but now Jet said they were starting over, they were going to be different, to work within society rather than outside it. Which meant that now, Sokka was in the right. Longshot accepted it as life.  
-

They weren't really sure if it was okay to interrupt Katara's concentration--she was biting the corner of her lip and hadn't spoken at all yet, even when Jet opened his eyes and mumbled her name--so when Smellerbee finally spoke up, she spoke to Sokka.

"Where's everyone else?" she asked, turning slightly away from the bed to look at him. Only slightly, though; Longshot could tell from her stance that she was keeping Jet in the corner of her eye. "Did you find your bison?"

"Yeah," Sokka replied, voice slightly lowered. He'd folded his arms a while ago, and now he glanced at the window. "Aang and Toph are waiting with him. Katara wouldn't leave without checking on Jet again."

He nodded. Smellerbee glanced back at Katara's hands.

"I need more water," Katara said suddenly.

Sokka straightened slightly; Longshot had a feeling that was a bad sign. "How much?"

"I don't--" She bit deeper into her lip, and then carefully ran a hand down Jet's chest. ". . . A lot. Another jug's worth."

"There's a well in the courtyard," Smellerbee replied, shifting away from the wall and making a motion towards Katara's container.

Longshot stood.  
-

He left his bow and quiver in the room--walking the streets late at night with weapons stirred up trouble, and he'd need his hands free--so all he had was the small knife tucked in the back of his sash.

Longshot didn't like fighting hand-to-hand, but he could do it if necessary. He was even better now than he'd been before, because once Smellerbee had started getting more and more nervous over Jet's absence, she'd insisted on doing knife fighting training with him. They practiced late at night, since the closest thing they had to a curtain for the window was his vest; the neighbors sometimes gave them looks that made Smellerbee glare back.  
-

If the waterbender said she needed more water, he figured he better bring back as much as he could carry. So once the jug was full, Longshot refilled the bucket and then cut it free from the rope and took it back with him as well.

Katara didn't even look up when he came back in; she just made a twisting motion with her wrist and all the water floated up and over to Jet, making the jug and bucket abruptly lighter. It spread out over Jet's chest and right shoulder, quickly picking up the same glow as the water around her hands.

Jet was gritting his teeth, but he didn't look as pained as he had before. Longshot set the bucket down by the door, the container down next to Katara, and then moved back over to the chair. He didn't sit down this time.

". . . What are you going to do?" Smellerbee asked after a few more moments, like she was picking up a previous topic. "You can't hide something that big in a place as cramped as this."

"Well, we can't leave," Sokka replied, rubbing his temple with the heel of his hand. "This is the only major city the Fire Nation hasn't captured yet--we have to get to the Earth King _somehow_."

"You better hurry," Smellerbee said, folding her arms and looking at Jet again. "There's already firebenders in here."

Sokka jerked, hand dropping. "**What**?"

For a moment, Jet's grimace twisted up slightly at the corner, in an attempt at a grin.

_It's kind of funny that you believe me, now that I can't completely believe it myself_, he was saying, but not in an angry way. Smellerbee was looking at the floorboards that were warping slightly around the bed; she missed it.

"That's why Jet got captured in the first place," she said, since Jet hadn't made any gestures to tell her to stay quiet. "We ran into these two firebenders when we were coming here."

"How do you know they were firebenders?" Sokka asked. He didn't sound as skeptical as they'd been when Jet told them, but at this point he'd probably heard 'We don't have a war in Ba Sing Se' about as many times as they had. Maybe more--his group seemed bent on doing something else now that Appa was back with them.

Smellerbee shook her head slightly and looked over at Jet again. "The old man's tea was steaming a few seconds after he'd said it was cold, right?"

"Yeah," Jet answered. His voice was a little clearer, but there was still that thickness to it. Katara murmured for him to be quiet, still focused on the water along his chest. "Li."

Smellerbee frowned. "I thought that was his nephew's name?"

Katara's expression dared Jet to talk one more time. He just nodded.

A second later, Sokka shoved hard away from the wall, causing Longshot to reach for his bow and an arrow out of reflex. Smellerbee was even tenser than him--she'd pulled her dagger completely out of its sheath.

Sokka glanced at both of them long enough to determine they weren't attacking and then focused back on Jet. "It was an old man and his nephew? Was the nephew our age, with a scar on his face?"

All three of them blinked. "Yeah," Smellerbee answered for Jet.

Sokka turned enough to stare at his sister. "Katara."

She'd tilted her head towards him, but still kept her eyes focused on Jet. "Go back to Aang and tell him. I'll catch up--I'm almost done."

Sokka didn't even reply--he headed straight for the door.

"I **said** to leave him there, why doesn't _anyone ever listen to me_. . . ." they heard him snarl before he pulled the door closed.

"What was that?" Smellerbee demanded, looking from the door to Katara.

"They're firebenders," she said quietly. "We've . . . run into them before."

A couple moments after that, Jet made a breathy, choking noise which took Longshot a few seconds to realize was a laugh. Katara glared at him. "_Stop that_."

Smellerbee looked over at him after Jet closed his eyes and Katara leaned forward to keep working. Longshot could only look back at her.  
-

Even though she'd said she was almost done, it was still a while before Katara finished; Longshot had to light their third to last candle and extinguish the other one before it could sputter out completely.

But finally, Katara lifted the water out of Jet's shirt and away from his chest, sending some of it into her jug and the rest back to the bucket. There wasn't room for all of it, so she sent the excess floating out the window, before making a releasing gesture. No one yelled outside, so it must have gone unnoticed. Katara rubbed the back of her neck.

"Your lung is bruised," she said, looking at the mattress for a few moments before lifting her gaze back up to Jet. "But it's only a small area. I've done all I can for your ribs and shoulder, so the important thing is for you to breath deeply, even if it hurts. If you have enough oxygen, you won't get an infection, and the bruising will go away in a few days." She reached for her cloak.

"Okay," Jet replied. He was speaking slowly, but still more clearly than anything he'd said before. He pushed himself up a fraction, gingerly, on the elbow of his good arm. "Thanks, Katara."

She had been tugging her cloak back on quickly, like she was concerned that the rest of her group had started worrying about her, but she paused at that. It was quiet enough, both inside the room and outside in the city, that they could hear her swallow.

". . . Thank you," she replied, "for not fighting Aang."

Jet's faint smile at that was at best personal and at worst involuntary; Longshot looked away from him and over at Smellerbee. She was tucking the pain medicine and the old bandages into the cupboard.

"I have to go," Katara said a moment later, fidgeting with her hood but not quite pulling it on. "Remember, breathe deep."

"Good luck," Jet told her.

Katara nodded, flipped the hood over her head, and left. Longshot checked over her shoulder that there was no one in the street below before closing the door behind her.

Smellerbee had taken the chair, ready to pick up her shift even though she'd only gotten about an hour of sleep. She shook her head when Longshot pointed that out, saying, "You haven't gotten any yet."

He was tired, he couldn't deny it. So was she.

"Both of you, get some rest," Jet interrupted, still a little slowly.

"But--"

"It's a big bison," he said. "They'll get out, but they won't be unnoticed. This is probably the--" he stopped and coughed, making a pained noise as he did.

When he got his air back, Jet lay back on the mattress again, gritting his teeth slightly. ". . . The only night we can all sleep," he finished.

". . . I'm sorry," Smellerbee said quietly. Longshot nodded, knowing that Jet would know he'd done it even if he didn't see it.

Jet shook his head twice. "No," he replied. "I did it wrong. I. . . ."

He didn't finish the statement, so after a moment Longshot looked over at Smellerbee. She hesitated, and he was pretty sure she would try to stay awake for a while anyway, but finally she slid out of the chair and lay down on the ground, sword next to her.

He moved his bow and quiver into arms' reach, and then blew out the candle and lay down as well.

He didn't close his eyes until he heard Smellerbee shift slightly, with the cloth on stone sound that meant she was curling up closer to her sword.

Later, after it had been dark for a while, they heard Jet take a deep breath, and then immediately hiss and swear under his breath. The mattress rustled as he dug his fingers into it; and then a few moments later, he took a deep breath again.

And that brought things closer to normal.


End file.
